Kissing Goats

Someone once said "If you throw a bucket of water at a fence and the water gets through so will a goat."  I believe it! We have had Misty and Princess pretty well contained with the cattle...after all, they think they are cows now.  When the guys sort cattle though our little goat friends turn into opportunists and sneak out to their favorite spot on the farm...our porch!  I just thought this picture was to cute not to share!

New Inspiration, Friends, Car and the First Calf of the Year!

What a week it has been! I finally feel like I have landed on this Saturday afternoon! We have had so many great experiences this week starting with the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in LaCrosse last weekend. We were inspired, educated and encouraged by other farmers who care about sustainable agriculture right here in the mid-west. We learned a lot about how to make our farm better. I hope to share in more detail in later posts but for now, here is a little pic. of our hens taking advantage of the small piece of bare ground they could find. They are not big fans of snow!

We were able to connect to another great entrepreneurial couple in the are who grow a vast amount of vegetables with the purpose of donating everything back to the Green County Food Pantry. Visit them at Bountiful Hope Farms. We also went to two Monroe Chamber of Commerce events to learn of all the great business going on in this county and gained a greater appreciation and excitement for life and business in this county. We even heared Casey FitzPatrick, olympic gold medalist speak and...he even had the gold medal to show off. It was awesome!!

This was also car shopping week, due to the fact that I (Jen) totalled our trusty CRV a few weeks ago (everyone is fine!). We found a great used mini-van that had fairly low mileage and I'm pretty sure we will have until our 7 year old starts driving. That is unless I drive it into a guard rail in the next 9 years.

The best news of all though is the fist calf of the spring! She is a healthy little Hereford Heifer and came before the snow storm, so is happily residing with her mommy and two new found goat friends in the barn. There is a conversation about what to name the calf on my facebook page. Please give your opinion. So far I think the best name is "Seven". My 3 year old nephew came up with it. I think it's cute!

Farming with kids

The girls love to help around the farm. Elli truly likes to do chores and see things get done! Kalena really likes playing with paint brush's and hoses :)
Painting the garage. The chicken coop is in the background. We have been doing a lot of painting this fall!


The girls with their "cat hotel". This is really the nesting box for the hens (who by the way have yet to lay an egg...grrrr).

Riemer Family Farm in the News

The Brodhead Free Press ran a really nice article on us and our farm in the paper today! We are thankful to them for getting our name out to more readers. July is Beef month and they wanted to highlight a local farm raising beef on a small sustainable farm. If you are in the Brodhead area pick up a copy.

Summer Fun - Pictures

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the fun we are having outside these days!

The girls would swim and do the sprinkler all day if I let them!



Here are the girls feeding "Brownie" our orphaned calf. She is really sweet and pretty much thinks we are her parents and the girls her siblings.



Two generation of farmer working on building a "chicken tractor". This will be the portable cage we keep our meat chickens in so that they can eat grass & bugs and enjoy the great outdoors for their short time on this earth. Notice the third generation happily watching from the swingset.

What did the fast tomato say to the slow tomato?

KETCHUP! Ha, ha, ha...yes I know this is 6 year old humor but that's what I'm dealing with! Elli and I are having a mommy daughter day and having a blast. So far today we have: sent the little sister on a day trip, learned Spanish at breakfast time, gone for a run/bike ride, learned math by baking granola bars, played with and/or feed assorted farm animals and pets and eaten lunch among the falling leaves. Whew! Now Elli is working on painting a big wooden "E" that will be part of our alphabet decoration project. I am really digging homeschooling and I'm pretty sure Elli likes it too!


These are pictures of Elli hanging out with a couple of her best friends after our bike ride and Kalena singing Karaoke in the Oval Office (at a children's museum in St. Louis). These are just a couple of the cool things we are able to do because of the flexibility of homeschooling. I need to get moving and help Elli out with her painting and then off to the Library followed by a visit to our friendly calf Chuck.

Leaving a Lasting Impression

Last week we made some repairs to the hog barn - yeah! The concrete guys had some left over concrete in the truck, and they poured a little driveway up to the shed door. The girls were very excited to leave a hand print in the wet concrete, just like their daddy did back in 1983. It is a joy to be on a farm that has a long family history and I smile at the thought of continuing that legacy. From the dinner bell with Willis and Lenora's (Bryce's Grandparents) names inscribed below it, to 6 year old Bryce’s hand print in an old concrete slab, to the many old pieces of farm equipment here and there. We are just beginning to add to the rich history of this land.

Ground Chuck to Up Chuck: A Success Story

Up Chuck, up, stand up...up Chuck, up, stand up... This became Kalena's chant every time we went out to do "bovine therapy" on Chuck, the calf.

Chuck injured a nerve in his shoulders or spine about 12 days ago, and was not able to stand up. We brought Chuck up to our yard last Saturday (11 days ago) and began discussing our course of action. We decided that Chuck needed some special calf food, fresh hay and water and lots of TLC to be restored to health. He could not put any weight on his front legs and it seemed had no feeling in them either. We may have a sick sense of humor, but we named him Chuck as in Ground Chuck...get it? Groan!

Grandpa, Kalena, Elli and I (Jen) spent time with Chuck several times a day moving his legs and massaging his joints. We joked that we could sell him as Kobe beef when this was all said and done.

Chucks progress was slow, and at times we were not very hopeful that he would regain feeling and strength in his legs. However, this Saturday one week after Chuck took up residence in my lawn he stood with help from us. Let me tell you lifting a 300 lb calf is no easy task! Within an hour he stood by himself and wandered a few steps to the shrubs for some fresh leaves and grass. Late Saturday evening our dog Oliver was barking like crazy, when I looked out to see what the fuss was I saw Chuck wandering around the yard munching on anything he could find. Good grief! By morning he was nose to nose across the gate with the other steers about 100 yards from where he began. No one would ever know he had any problems with his legs at all.

Caring for Chuck has been such a great lesson in animal husbandry for both myself and the girls. I have to say we have become a little attached to Chuck. He is the most exciting addition to what we call the Riemer Family Petting Zoo which consists of: 11 Kittens, 3 cats, 1 city dog, 1 farm dog, 1 old pony and now a perfectly healthy, friendly calf named Chuck.

Brodhead - Covered Bridge Days

I (Jen) grew up in Sterling, IL. A nice place to grow up, but very different from the communities of WI that I knew little about as a child. When I went off to college at UW-Platteville (go Pioneers!) I began to realize that things really were quite different just north of the border. I was horrified when all the boys took the week before Thanksgiving off to go shoot poor helpless deer and was amazed when I learned that there was so much more to cheese than American, Cheddar and Swiss. One thing I appreciated most about Wisconsin though was the state pride and small town festivals!

This weekend we took part in the Brodhead - Covered Bridge Days festivities. The annual gathering of people from town and the country to celebrate...well...there is a covered bridge on the Sugar River Trail...but I think it's more of an excuse to just have a festival. Check out the website here. The highlight of the festival is the old tractors. Just off the main drag is a big field with: flea market, food vendors, old tractors on display and the kids toy tractor pull. I thought the tractor pull would be a great way for the girls to get more acclimated to country living in WI. They were divided up by weight and competed against 15-20 other kids in their class. I figured they would line up the 5 toy tractors and race (silly me). The goal in any tractor pull, toy or otherwise, is to pull weight from the starting line to the finish. In this case 40 feet was the distance. If a child could pull the weight the entire way they would move on to the next round and have more wight added to their load with the winner being the child who could pull the most weight the farthest. I was amazed at how competitive it was. There were 4 year old boys with looks of determination I have seen on Olympic athletes and slews of parents cheering and taking pictures (which I was guilty of as you can see). Some children travel around the state to various festivals and events in order to compete in toy tractor pulls! It's their sport!

Well, I have to say Kalena did pretty well, she was one of two little girls in her class that made it to round two, but then she was eliminated by all the little bruisers who must do this for a living :) She had fun and felt like a true winner. My dear sweet Elli on the other hand did not have that much success. Her load was quite a bit heavier than Kalena's and few children from her class made it to round two. She is very competitive, determined and a little too smart to believe me when I told her pulling the weight 8 feet was really great! It was just not satisfying to her to hear that we were so proud of her for trying something new! She was grumpy for an hour and deep down quite disappointed that her baby sister did better than she did. Ugh, the difficulty of parenting.

Take home lesson...encourage the girls to take part in different sports or activities from now on!

Blog posts will be few in June

Hello friends,

Due to moving, having no reliable internet and not wanting to move our computer into a construction zone our blog posts will be spotty this month. I hope to have the new office set up and high speed internet running at the farm by mid-July at the latest. Sorry for the neglect of the blog, but we will get back to it as much as we can, so stay tuned!

Moving Day!

Well, we are moving to a new neighborhood tomorrow. June 5, 2010 is the big day to haul most of our belongings across the IL/WI state line. Our new neighbors are pictured above. They are nice girls! We will miss many things about our friendly little neighborhood, but we are moving on to follow the dreams that have been a long time in the making. We are certainly ready for the transition considering that we have been renovating the farm house for 3 years and living in two different places for as long. However, the change does not come without it's share of emotions and difficulties. A few tears were shed by Elli and I (Jen) on her last day of kindergarten as she said goodbye to her best little friends for the last time.

We are beginning a new chapter in our lives, almost a whole new book! We hope and plan to make Jordan Prairie our forever home and make the beautiful little plot of fertile land our life's work. We are blessed! Blessed to have the "Gift of Good Land" if I can steel a book title from Wendel Berry. We are blessed to have support from so many family and friends. We are blessed to have each other and the amazing opportunity to raise our little girls in the country!

I hope that you will follow along on the adventure as we grow and learn as farmers, parents and stewards of the land. If you are following our journey on this blog let us know, we would love to hear your comments and questions! Thanks ~ Jen